Page 362 - tess-of-the-durbervilles

However, he did not let her fall, but took advantage of the
support of the handrail to imprint a kiss upon her lips—lips
in the day-time scorned. Then he clasped her with a renewed
firmness of hold, and descended the staircase. The creak of
the loose stair did not awaken him, and they reached the
ground-floor safely. Freeing one of his hands from his grasp
of her for a moment, he slid back the door-bar and passed
out, slightly striking his stockinged toe against the edge
of the door. But this he seemed not to mind, and, having
room for extension in the open air, he lifted her against his
shoulder, so that he could carry her with ease, the absence
of clothes taking much from his burden. Thus he bore her
off the premises in the direction of the river a few yards dis-
tant.
His ultimate intention, if he had any, she had not yet di-
vined; and she found herself conjecturing on the matter as
a third person might have done. So easefully had she deliv-
ered her whole being up to him that it pleased her to think
he was regarding her as his absolute possession, to dispose
of as he should choose. It was consoling, under the hovering
terror of to-morrow’s separation, to feel that he really recog-
nized her now as his wife Tess, and did not cast her off, even
if in that recognition he went so far as to arrogate to himself
the right of harming her.
Ah! now she knew what he was dreaming of—that Sun-
day morning when he had borne her along through the
water with the other dairymaids, who had loved him near-
ly as much as she, if that were possible, which Tess could
hardly admit. Clare did not cross the bridge with her, but

362 Tess of the d’Urbervilles